the pay for pentagon officials is not going to be cut. if this drags on into march or april, they will have to do furloughs, is essentially giving people vacations. host: the headline from "the wall street journal." is that one way to do that? guest: that is a painful way to do that. when people do not have money to spend, the economy is not going to grow. if this goes on for a couple of days and the stock market falls dramatically, congress and the white house may be able to avoid some of the long-term consequences. if everybody digs end, more disasters things could take hold. host: the president, vice president, speaker of the house, democratic leader of the house, will be meeting today. from the reporting you have done, what will be happening? guest: they could sit down and cut a deal in five minutes. they know all the issues. they know where their parties are. they could sit down in five minutes, shaking hands, and cut a deal. i do not think that will happen. o no dwant to be seen as the party that is caving in. i think they will say,